“It is Mokubey’s,” briefly explained the old gentleman.
“This is very interesting,” I complimented briefly also.
“There are many imitations in Mokubeys. These have the inscription; look at the base,” says the host.
I took up my cup and held it towards the semitransparent shoji. On the screen was seen a potted haran plant casting its shadow warmly. I looked into the base twisting my head, and saw there “Mokubey” burnt in diminutively. Inscriptions are not indispensables for real connoisseurs; but amateurs seem, generally, very sensitively particular about them. I brought the cup to my lips, instead of putting it back on the table. Leisurely lovers of real good tea rise to the seventh heaven, when, drop, drop, they let the correctly drawn aromatic liquid roll on the tip of their tongues. Ordinarily, people think that tea is to be drunk; but that is not correct. A drop on your tongue; something refreshing spreads over it, you have practically nothing more to send down your throat, except that a delightfully soothing flavour travels down the alimentary canal into the stomach. It is vulgar to bring the teeth to service; but pure fresh water is too light. Gyokuro tea is thicker than water, but not heavy enough for the molar action. It is a fine beverage. If the objection be that tea robs one of sleep, then I should say “better be without sleep than be without tea.” In the midst of my usual philosophical musing, the priest spoke to me again.
“Can you paint in oil on fusuma?43 If you can, I should like to have some painted.”
If the priest would have me do it, I may not refuse; but that it would please him was not at all certain, and I should hate to retire crestfallen, by having it declared that an oil painting is no good, after I had spared no labour for its execution.
“I do not think oil paintings will go well on a fusuma.”
“You do not think so? You are probably right. What I have seen of Kyuichi-san’s production will make me think that it will look perhaps too gay on a fusuma.”
“Mine is no good. It was an idle piece of work,” says the youth with a stress on his words, apologetically and abashedly.
“Where is that what-do-you-call-it pond?” I asked the youth for my information.
“In the hollow of valley just in the rear of Kaikanji temple. It is a quiet lonely place. That picture. … I took lessons in school … I just tried it to while away the time.”
“And that Kaikanji?”
“Kaikanji is the name of a temple in my charge. It is a fine place, with the sea stretching from right under you. You must come and see me, while you are here. It is not more than a mile from here. From that verandah … there you can see its stone steps.”
“Won’t I make myself unwelcome by calling on you any time to please myself?”
“Decidedly not; you will always find me in. O-Jo-san of this house pays me visits quite often. Speaking of the O-Jo-san, O-Nami-san does not seem to be around, today. Anything the matter with her, Shiota-san?”
“Has she gone out? Has she been your way, Kyuichi?”
“No, uncle; we haven’t seen her around.”
“Out on one of her solitary walks, again, perhaps. Ha, ha, ha. O-Nami-san is pretty strong-legged. A clerical business took me down to Tonami the other day. About Sugatami bridge I thought I saw one very like her, and it was she. She almost sprang on me, taking me by surprise, with one of her outbursts: ‘Why are you dragging along, so, Osho-san? Where are you going?’ She was in her pair of straw sandals, with her skirt tucked up. ‘Where have you been in that attire?’ I asked her. ‘I have been picking marsh-parsley; you shall have some.’ Saying this, she took out a handful of unwashed mud-covered plants and pushed it down my sleeve. Ha, ha, ha.”
“That girl did!” said that girl’s father with one of the grimmest of smiles, and seized the first opportunity to change the topic, by taking down from rosewood book case something heavy looking in a damask silk bag. He informed us that the bag contained an ink-stone, that once belonged to Rai Sanyo, as one of desk stationeries most treasured by that famous poet-historian and scholar-calligrapher of generations ago. This naturally led to a critical discussion of autographs of Shunsui, Kyohei, Sanyo, Sorai, etc. The ink-stone brought to view at last drew forth admiration from the priest, who was infatuated with the “eyes” and the irridescent colour of the stone. It went without saying that the ink-stone was originally imported from China.
“A stone like this must be rare even in China, Shiota-san?”
“Yes.”
“I should like to have one like this. May I ask you to get me one, Kyuichi-san?” ventured the abbot.
“He, he, he, I might be killed before I found one,” retorted the youth.
“Hoi, I am forgetting, it is no time to talk of getting an ink-stone and things of that kind. By the by, when do you start?”
“I leave here in a few days, Osho-sama.”
“You should go down to Yoshida, to see him off, old man.”
“I am getting on in years and ordinarily I should excuse myself. But this time we may part never to meet again, and I am resolved to go down to see him off.”
“No, uncle, you must not take trouble to go down to Yoshida for me.”
I now felt sure that the youth was really a nephew of mine host. I even saw some resemblance between them.
“You must not say so. You should let
